Worms are most commonly found in the bowels and stomach; but they are sometimes met with also in almost every part of the body. The worms commonly found in the stomach are named botts. They are generally attached to the cuticular or insensible coat of the stomach; but sometimes clusters of them are found at the pylorus, and even in the beginning of the first intestine, named duodenum. In one case they were so numerous in this last situation as to obstruct the passage completely, and cause the animal’s death. Botts are short thick reddish worms, surrounded with short prickles, which are arranged in circular bands all over the body. They attach themselves firmly by two hooks, which they appear to have the power of straightening and retracting, of projecting and curvating. They are extremely tenacious of life, and difficult to be expelled from the stomach, except about the month of September, or when a horse is taken up from grass. At this period they may generally be got rid of by brine, or a solution of common salt in water, in a dose of from four to five ounces of salt to a quart of water. The horse should be kept fasting the night before it is given; and about five minutes before the drench with salt is given, let the horse be drenched with about a pint of warm milk, sweetened with honey or treacle.
Mercurial physic seems to be generally considered the most effectual, especially when a little calomel is given for two or three successive nights, and followed up by a dose of physic. I have seen small doses of aloes given daily, about two drachms, with good effect. Oil of turpentine is a powerful vermifuge, if given after some hours’ fasting, and when the bowels have been brought into a lax state by giving bran mashes for two or three days, or a small dose (about three drachms) of aloes the day before.
This previous fasting, as well as keeping the horse without food two hours after, is necessary to the success of this remedy. In a few instances, oil of turpentine has produced alarming symptoms; and in one case, where a horse had taken a mild dose of physic the day before, it brought on almost immediately a fatal inflammation of the stomach and bowels. On the other hand, a great number of cases have been reported to me in which it has been given with the best effect. I should be inclined, however, to try the mercurial purgative first; but even this, in the horse, is attended with some danger, unless he is managed judiciously before, and during its operation. The third remedy is of a milder nature, but often, I believe, inert; that is, bitter vegetables, such as rue, box, savine, &c., which are chopped up and given with the horse’s corn. Ethiop’s mineral, levigated antimony, emetic tartar, very small doses of arsenic and calomel, have each of them sometimes succeeded. But, whatever worm medicine is given, the horse should be kept without food for several hours, or the whole night before, and two hours after. Chopped horse-hair has been given with success, and brine, or a solution of common salt. In one case, a great number of worms were discharged by fasting the horse during the night, and giving him a malt mash in the morning. Another method is to keep the horse without food during the night, and give him in the morning a quart of new milk sweetened with honey, and about ten minutes after, four, five, or six ounces of salt in a quart of water. A run at grass in the spring is, perhaps, the best remedy of all, for it is the most effectual means of invigorating the digestive organs, and purifying the blood. When it is not convenient to turn the horse out, he should be soiled in the stable with vetches. The most certain indication of worms, except that of their being discharged with the horse’s dung, is a yellowish or brimstone-coloured stain under the fundament. Sometimes worms produce symptoms of an unusual kind, as in the following case:—A horse was observed for some time to fall off in flesh and become weak, and, upon attempting to mount him, he shrunk and gave way in the back, as if he had received some severe injury in that part; they gave him, however, a dose of mercurial physic, which brought off a lump of worms and viscid mucus as large as a man’s fist. After this the horse was perfectly free from pain in the back, and quickly recovered his flesh and strength. I have heard of a horse being cured of worms, when reduced by them to such a degree of weakness that he was thought incurable, by being turned into a field of young vetches. Powdered tin has been recommended for worms, and may be given without danger in a dose of three or four drachms made into a ball with flour and honey. With regard to the short red worms, named botts, so often found in the horse’s stomach, adhering in large clusters, most commonly to the insensible coat, but sometimes to the pylorus, the most likely means of expelling them is to give a drench of salt and water in the manner before prescribed; that is, to keep the horse without food during the night, and in the morning to give him a quart of new milk sweetened with honey; about ten minutes after this drench is down, the drench of salt and water is to be given. This remedy should be employed in September, or soon after a horse is taken from grass. Botts are so often found in the horse’s stomach, that they have been supposed to do no harm; it is certain, however, that they sometimes produce the most serious diseases. They sometimes cause ulceration and sloughing of the stomach, inflammation of the lungs and heart, and frenzy or mad staggers. According to Gibson they sometimes cause locked-jaw. Botts appear to be the larvæ of a fly, and are probably eaten with grass or hay. According to Mr. Bracy Clark, the fly deposits its eggs on the horse’s coat; and, when they are about to be hatched, the horse licks them off, so that they are hatched by the warmth of the mouth and the moisture of the saliva, and then swallowed. Mr. Feron says he has paid particular attention to this subject, and has found that, when in large quantities, they are very destructive to horses; that he has seen several horses whose stomachs had been pierced quite through by them, the botts making their way into the abdomen. He thinks they are taken in with the horse’s forage, whether dry or green, as they are found in horses that have not been at grass for several years, but that they may also be licked in from the horse’s coat. He is of opinion that botts, when once attached to the stomach, may remain there during the horse’s life, and it is only when they become too numerous that they are forced off and discharged by the bowels. Mr. James Clarke relates a case of a horse’s stomach being perforated by botts. I have seen several horses destroyed by botts. In some of them, they caused inflammation of the lungs; in one frenzy, or mad staggers. In one horse the pylorus was completely plugged up with them. There is a remarkable sympathy or consent between the stomach and the lungs, and it is owing to this that they sometimes cause inflammation of the lungs. In the cases which have occurred in my practice, the most remarkable circumstance was the great depression they occasioned, and the inefficacy of copious bleeding. Castor oil seemed to do more good than anything, and Mr. Feron remarks that common oil, given in large quantities, has sometimes succeeded in detaching botts from the stomach; and he adds, it is the only medicine that seems to have any effect in making them lose their hold from the stomach. There is a kind of worm I have often met with since I have practised in Somersetshire, especially at Oakhill, which appears to do a great deal of mischief. When drawn out, they are from one to three or four inches in length, from one to two eighths of an inch in breadth, and scarcely of any thickness; they have numerous transverse lines close to each other, like those of the leach, and adhere firmly to the bowels by one of their extremities. When viewed through a microscope, the transverse lines appear as upright scales applied very near to each other, and inclining, I think, a little forwards; the extremity, by which they adhere to the gut, appears as a bulb with holes in it; the other extremity is square, as if it had been cut off transversely. These worms are generally of a white colour, and sometimes drawn up or contracted so as to appear as a flake of mucus, or fat, of about half an inch in length. I have seen them of a darker colour in horses that were in a state of great poverty, and sometimes reddish, as if containing blood. In many dogs and cats that have been opened at Oakhill, they have been almost invariably found; and they have been discharged, in this village, from the bowels of men and children. They are found both in the small and large bowels, most commonly in the former, and near the part where the ilium terminates in the cœcum. At Easton, near Wells, this worm has been seen swimming in a small stream that runs through the village, from which it is probable that their natural habitation is water, and that they are swallowed while the animal is drinking, and are capable of living in the bowels.
Method of worming dogs.—Secure a large dog on his back on a table, bench, or form; one of a middling size may be held in the lap of an assistant; a small one may be conveniently taken into that of the operator. The mouth being held open by means of two pieces of tape—one embracing the part immediately behind the upper, and the other that posterior to the lower canine teeth—draw the tongue from the mouth, when, exposing its under surface, a cuticular fold or eminence will present itself, occupying its median line from the point to the base: open this with a lancet through its whole extent, which will expose a minute fibrous cord. Pass a blunt-pointed probe under it, and, carrying the instrument from one end to the other, detach the cord from its adhesions; which done, divide it at one extremity, and carefully drawing it forwards with a tenaculum, divide the other also. The uninitiated in sporting mysteries may smile at all this minuteness of detail, and recommendation of caution, in the division of a line of skin, and the extraction of a thread of ligament; but all this is actually necessary to satisfy the prejudices of those who put faith in the operation. For with them it is essential to the prospective benefits of it, not only that the whole of the worm (for which read frænum) should be extracted, but that, if possible, it should be done in one continuous mass.
In the removal of this cord by huntsmen, game-keepers, &c., the violence used in stripping it off, puts its fibrous substance so much on the stretch, that when extracted, its elasticity making it recoil, gives it somewhat the character of the contraction of a dying worm; and we may yet read of this appearance, and its general form, being adduced as proofs of its vermicular identity. And although now no informed person gives credence to its being other than a portion of the canine tongue; yet there are many sporting characters of education and ability, who still lend themselves to an opinion that there is some enigmatical property inherent in this part, which renders its retention dangerous, by making the unwormed dog the subject of acute rabies, but the wormed one the subject of the dumb variety. Of a piece with this palpable error was that of Marochetti’s vesicles in the same vicinage; which being also with him the hiding-place of the rabid virus, it became as necessary, according to his doctrine, to destroy them as it was with the ancients (and yet remains with some of the moderns) to remove the worm.
Of these worms which appear indigenous to the intestines of the dog, the tænia, or tape worm, from its flat figure, is the most prejudicial, and the most difficult to remove. I have known four or five hundred joints (each a distinct animal) passed by a dog, whose united length would encircle his body many times. Sometimes they become coiled up into a ball, which thus forms an impenetrable obstruction within the intestines, and destroys the dog.